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use centralized file for copyright info for individual contributors
* COPYRIGHT.md: New file.
* In most other files, use "Copyright (C) YYYY-YYYY The Octave Project
Developers" instead of tracking individual names in separate source
files. The motivation is to reduce the effort required to update the
notices each year.
Until now, the Octave source files contained copyright notices that
list individual contributors. I adopted these file-scope copyright
notices because that is what everyone was doing 30 years ago in the
days before distributed version control systems. But now, with many
contributors and modern version control systems, having these
file-scope copyright notices causes trouble when we update copyright
years or refactor code.
Over time, the file-scope copyright notices may become outdated as new
contributions are made or code is moved from one file to
another. Sometimes people contribute significant patches but do not
add a line claiming copyright. Other times, people add a copyright
notice for their contribution but then a later refactoring moves part
or all of their contribution to another file and the notice is not
moved with the code. As a practical matter, moving such notices is
difficult -- determining what parts are due to a particular
contributor requires a time-consuming search through the project
history. Even managing the yearly update of copyright years is
problematic. We have some contributors who are no longer
living. Should we update the copyright dates for their contributions
when we release new versions? Probably not, but we do still want to
claim copyright for the project as a whole.
To minimize the difficulty of maintaining the copyright notices, I
would like to change Octave's sources to use what is described here:
https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2012/ManagingCopyrightInformation.html
in the section "Maintaining centralized copyright notices":
The centralized notice approach consolidates all copyright
notices in a single location, usually a top-level file.
This file should contain all of the copyright notices
provided project contributors, unless the contribution was
clearly insignificant. It may also credit -- without a copyright
notice -- anyone who helped with the project but did not
contribute code or other copyrighted material.
This approach captures less information about contributions
within individual files, recognizing that the DVCS is better
equipped to record those details. As we mentioned before, it
does have one disadvantage as compared to the file-scope
approach: if a single file is separated from the distribution,
the recipient won't see the contributors' copyright notices.
But this can be easily remedied by including a single
copyright notice in each file's header, pointing to the
top-level file:
Copyright YYYY-YYYY The Octave Project Developers
See the COPYRIGHT file at the top-level directory
of this distribution or at https://octave.org/COPYRIGHT.html.
followed by the usual GPL copyright statement.
For more background, see the discussion here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/octave-maintainers/2020-01/msg00009.html
Most files in the following directories have been skipped intentinally
in this changeset:
doc
libgui/qterminal
liboctave/external
m4
| author | John W. Eaton <jwe@octave.org> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 06 Jan 2020 15:38:17 -0500 |
| parents | 00f796120a6d |
| children | 1891570abac8 |
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GNU Octave -- a high-level language for numerical computations ============================================================== Copyright (C) 1996-2019 The Octave Project Developers See the file COPYRIGHT.md in the top-level directory of this distribution or <https://octave.org/COPYRIGHT.html/>. Overview -------- GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides capabilities for the numerical solution of linear and nonlinear problems, and for performing other numerical experiments. It also provides extensive graphics capabilities for data visualization and manipulation. GNU Octave is normally used through its interactive interface (CLI and GUI), but it can also be used to write non-interactive programs. The GNU Octave language is quite similar to Matlab so that most programs are easily portable. GNU Octave is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. GNU Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Octave; see the file COPYING. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. Availability ------------ The latest released version of Octave is always available from <https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/> and many mirror sites around the world. You may also find links to binary distributions at <https://www.octave.org/download.html>. The current development sources may be found under the Source Code tab on [Savannah](https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/octave/). Installation ------------ Octave requires approximately 475 MB of disk storage to unpack and compile from source (significantly more, 3.8 GB, if you compile with debugging symbols). Once installed, Octave requires approximately 75 MB of disk space (again, considerably more, 415 MB, if you don't build shared libraries or the binaries and libraries include debugging symbols). To compile Octave, you will need a recent version of: - [GNU Make](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/) - [GNU G++](https://gcc.gnu.org/) or another C++11 compiler - [GNU Fortran](https://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/), another Fortran 77 compiler, or [f2c](http://www.netlib.org/f2c/) Octave's Makefiles use features of GNU Make that are not present in other versions of make. If you use `f2c`, you will need a script like `fort77` that works like a normal Fortran compiler by combining `f2c` with your C compiler in a single script. See the notes in the files `INSTALL.OCTAVE` and the system-specific `README` files in the `etc` directory of the Octave source distribution for more detailed installation instructions. Bugs and Patches ---------------- The file `BUGS` explains the recommended procedure for reporting bugs on the [bug tracker](https://bugs.octave.org) or contributing patches. Documentation ------------- * [Octave's manual](https://www.octave.org/doc/interpreter/) is a comprehensive user guide covering introductive and more advanced topics. * [Octave's wiki](https://wiki.octave.org) is a user community page, covering various topics and answering [FAQ](https://wiki.octave.org/FAQ). * [Octave's Doxygen](https://www.octave.org/doxygen/) documentation explains the C++ class libraries. Partially, the up-to-dateness of the documentation is lagging a bit behind the development of the software. If you notice omissions or inconsistencies, please report them at our bug tracker. Specific suggestions for ways to improve Octave and its documentation are always welcome. Reports with patches are even more welcome. Additional Information ---------------------- Up to date information about Octave is available on the WWW at <https://www.octave.org>, or ask for help via email <help@octave.org>.